Nissan announced that it will offer autonomous vehicles that will have broad availability and an affordable price by 2020.

Nissan's plan is to deliver several vehicle models with its Autonomous Drive technology by the end of this decade, and Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn will push hard to make sure that goal is met.

“In 2007 I pledged that – by 2010 – Nissan would mass market a zero-emission vehicle,” Ghosn said. “Today, the Nissan LEAF is the best-selling electric vehicle in history. Now I am committing to be ready to introduce a new ground-breaking technology, Autonomous Drive, by 2020, and we are on track to realize it.”

Nissan is hoping for "availability across the model range within two vehicle generations."

Nissan is already working hard toward its goal. The automaker has been working with several colleges such as MIT, UC Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, Oxford, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Virginia Tech, and almost every major university in Japan to develop the autonomous technology.

In addition, Nissan is working on an autonomous vehicle testing facility in Japan, which should be completed next year.

Back in February, Nissan announced its Silicon Valley research center for autonomous vehicles. The new facility is called the Nissan Research Center Silicon Valley (NRC-SV), and it will use partnerships with educational institutions and companies to work on projects for new vehicle technologies.

Nissan's autonomous vehicle technology will be based off of its current Safety Shield tech, which monitors a 360-degree view around a vehicle for risks and offers warnings to the driver. It will even respond to the situation if necessary.

We may have to wait until 2020 for Nissan's autonomous vehicles, but in the meantime, the automaker is making strides in the electric vehicle industry. For instance, it announced that it will offer a new battery design for the all-electric Leaf in April 2014 if current testing goes well. The new design aims to help the Leaf's battery from depleting under severe weather conditions (mainly heat).

Nissan has seen a surge in Leaf sales this year, and updating its battery design can only help its cause. In July, it was reported that Nissan is now selling approximately 2,000 Leaf electric vehicles each month (about four times the volume it was selling about a year ago). To meet this new demand, Nissan is slowly ramping up production of the Leaf at its manufacturing facility in Tennessee.

Why? Because you say so? Because you think the government can and should force it? They absolutely should not. It's not any of their business how I drive. Federally funded highways you say? Fine, return control to the states. I think they had the authority to build the highways but if the choice is mandatory autonomous vehicles or no funding, I'll take no funding.

Until you see what that does to your taxes and then you won't be such a badass anymore. Everyone talks big until it hits their wallet. The states already struggle to keep up on our infrastructure. Unless you somehow drive the unions out of performing the work, the cost will continue to increase and so will the dependency on federal assistance, just as is the trend with most aspects of our society recently.

The only problem with the more than adequate state road funds is that they use it as a slush fund for pork barrel projects and NOT the roads exclusively.

All you're doing is advocating for the status quo! We need to stop just accepting this culture of waste, irresponsibility, and corruption in our local and Federal Governments first. THEN we can worry about who's going to pay for things.

Trust me, that's the exact opposite of what I try to advocate. The main problem I see is that the nation is always pitted against each other as red vs blue and no one ever realizes the level of waste that is going on. The feds take in something like $4 trillion in tax dollars a year, yet they somehow claim that is not enough and on top of that, debt is increasing at an exponential rate.

You have no right to drive anything anywhere. Sorry that you think otherwise.

The majority of people will vote to remove drivers from the roads for safety and economic reasons. It's inevitable. When the technology becomes available it is simply a matter of time. It's not if it is when.

Oh look, legal precedence and logic, supporting our undeniable RIGHT TO DRIVE! I'll just quote but one, because it says all that needs to be said.

"Undoubtedly the right of locomotion, the right to remove from one place to another according to inclination, is an attribute of personal Iiberty, and the right, ordinarily, of free transit from or through the territory of any State is a right secured by the l4th Amendment and by other provisions of the Constitution."

The courts decisions are that you have the right to freely operate and vehicle for the purpose of transportation. There is nothing that states that you have to be manually operating the vehicle for that right to still be granted.

View this in the context of seat belts. Most states require drivers to wear seat belts while operating a vehicle for passenger safety. Vehicles must be inspected and pass safety standards. Lights need to be used at night and in most states when it is raining as well.

There are tons of laws out there that restrict how you operate your vehicle already. So while you are given the right to transport freely in a vehicle, you are restricted in how that is accomplished. It is not a far stretch to see that applying to autonomous vehicles.

Do I think this will happen by 2020? No. Will it happen in my lifetime? Doubtful, but I'd be shocked if it did not eventually happen. The world's population continues to increase, traffic congestion continues to increase and impact not only the global economy but also the ecosystem, technological distractions are increasing, deaths are alarmingly frequent, and the technical ability to eliminate almost all of the negative aspects of human operation is quickly becoming reality. You're delusional if you can't see this is an inevitability.

You have a lot of faith in the automobile if you believe it will still be around in 100 years!

It's amazing they have lasted this long while progressing so slowly. Automobiles went virtually unchanged from 1900-1950, and they are still the most dangerous method of transportation. Safety has improved, as has reliability, quality, features, efficiency and handling, but aesthetics have always been all over the place, they are still incredibly dangerous to occupants and pedestrians, and cost of ownership has increased by orders of magnitude over the past century...not all of these problems will be solved by autonomous vehicles.

In 100 years, who knows how we'll travel, but it likely wont be in anything that resembles a automobile. I'm thinking tubes...

I was kind of joking about the tubes, but realistically I don't see vehicles being used on roads the way they are now in 2113, driver or driverless. It's going to be a completely different type of vehicle. It could be minority report style, futurama style, or star trek style. Who knows. The difference between cars 100 years ago and cars now is technology. Eventually technology will render cars we know now useless in the same way technology has advanced cars to nearly a dead-end (the final technical step for cars is automation, which apparently will be here in 7 years.)

After cars become automated and are as high-tech as possible, newer transport methods will be the focus. Cars can only get so good before they are antiquated.

Driving is a right, but like most rights, it can be denied if you violate the law...in the same way felons can't vote or carry a firearm. They are rights given to every citizen, but they can be striped.

Driving is a right that can be striped if you are in violation of the laws that must be adhered to in order to maintain that right. If you acquire too many tickets, drive under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or commit another crime while driving, the right to drive can be striped.

If you obey the law, you will likely always have the right to drive. I don't think society will ever vote to turn over control of a personal vehicle, essentially a piece of private property, away from the owner to a private computer program or network.

And if things got extreme...and I mean really extreme, and that did happen in the sense the government found a way to outlaw non-government controlled vehicles from federally funded roads, or if major interstates became privatized and banned manual-mode driving, there would be a huge market for private driving roads like the Nuremberg ring or just auto-cross track days.

quote: How about you prove it? Prove to me I don't have a right to drive.

You have it backward. I don't need to prove something isn't a right you need to prove it is. And you haven't because that would be impossible. You have no right to drive. What you do have is individual states granting you the privilege of operating a motor vehicle on public roads.

quote: I damn sure pay my taxes and maintain a legal license.

Who cares? Your taxes pay for road construction to move about the country. You don't need to maintain ownership of a vehicle to travel on public roads. Your license is the method by which the states grants you privilege to operate a vehicle. It can be taken away at will by the state.

All the links you've referenced don't mention operating a vehicle they mention traveling. You do have a right to move about the country but you do not have a right to operate a motor vehicle. States grant you that privilege. I'm sorry if you can't understand that. I can't help you improve your learning disability.

I'm not going to continue arguing about facts. Whether you believe this fact to be true or not is irrelevant and matters little to me.

You obviously didn't even read the entire link. Not surprising, because it destroys your Socialist argument.

We have a Constitutional right to travel, upheld by the courts. The method of travel is irrelevant. We have an absolute RIGHT to operate motor vehicles.

If you bothered to read, you would see these court cases SPECIFICALLY involved motor vehicles, idiot.

"There is no room for speculation in these court decisions. The American citizen does indeed have the inalienable right to use the roadways unrestricted in any manner as long as they are not damaging or violating property or rights of another."

The fact that we've accepted illegal infringements on this right, doesn't mean it's no longer a right.

quote: I don't need to prove something isn't a right you need to prove it is.

Exactly the type of thinking that worried Madison and why the 9'th Amendment was written.It has been objected also against a bill of rights, that, by enumerating particular exceptions to the grant of power, it would disparage those rights which were not placed in that enumeration; and it might follow, by implication, that those rights which were not singled out, were intended to be assigned into the hands of the General Government, and were consequently insecure. This is one of the most plausible arguments I have ever heard urged against the admission of a bill of rights into this system; but, I conceive, that it may be guarded against. I have attempted it, as gentlemen may see by turning to the last clause of the fourth resolution.